This blog began in 2007, focusing on anthrax vaccine, and later expanded to other public health and political issues. The blog links to media reports, medical literature, official documents and other materials.

Monday, May 21, 2012

Why are Super PACs different than all other PACs? [No, we are not discussing Passover tonight.] See what the NY Times has to say. But here is a quick summary:

Super PACs can accept and spend donations throughout the year, not just during election periods

Super PACs have few or maybe only one donor, and therefore no public accountability

The donors set the agendas, not the candidates

Funding is not limited by campaign spending limits on regular PACs

It's fast cause you don't have to get contributions from lots of associates, then bundle them; instead, wealthy donors can just write one fat check for, well, the sky's the limit!

The campaigns may be ethically and factually challenged

There is unlimited gravy available for political consultants in advertising commissions

Per the Times:

... Once seasonal affairs, campaigns from the presidential race down to House contests are becoming longer and more intense, driven by deep-pocketed donors eager to see incumbents pummeled throughout the political cycle. Decisions about attack ads and negative campaigning that once weighed on candidates are now made by consultants and donors with little or no accountability to the public.

“It’s not just easier to raise super PAC money — it’s dramatically easier,” Mr. Davis, a prominent Republican advertising strategist, said. “We raised more money than the Huntsman campaign, but we only had 20 or 30 donors.”

... With the primaries winding down, many consultants are turning to “boutique” super PACs, smaller outfits set up on behalf of a few donors — sometimes only one — to influence a few House and Senate races and other lower-profile campaigns. And some of the presidential super PACs are refashioning themselves as platforms for their vanquished candidates or as vehicles for general election spending. Mr. Schuman converted Americans for Rick Perry into the Restoring Prosperity Fund, with some of the same donors. The group will focus on Latino turnout and on efforts to help Mr. Romney in what Mr. Schuman called “second-tier” battleground states like Nevada and Colorado.

Super PACs offer advantages to the donors as well. Because they can give unlimited amounts to outside groups, they can have substantial influence without the hard work of raising money for a candidate, $2,500 check by $2,500 check, from other donors.

And super PACs allow them to spend on specific races or strategies, a development that could leave some candidates less dependent on party committees to decide whether they get the support they feel they need.

“You can’t roll into the National Republican Senatorial Committee and say: ‘Here is my check. I want it to go to these races,’ ” said one consultant who works with outside groups. “And you can with the super PAC.”

After swimming with dolphins at Key Largo, they checked me out at the edge of the pool

Visiting a Bhutanese Dzong, the regional seat of both government and religion (and a fort for good measure)

Why am I blogging?

Because life is meant to be lived! The left side of this blog has photos of some peak experiences. And the right side contains information about which I am passionate.

Too many peoples' lives are characterized by lack of authenticity, and fear of acknowledging and expressing their true nature. Employees cannot say what they think at work, and in the corporate system we must squish ourselves into square holes when we are round pegs. We thus lose touch with our souls, becoming cogs in a soulless, profit-driven machine.

The culture of political correctness has meant, in medicine, that we ignore how the foundations of our science are being undermined by commercialism. Clinical data generated or presented by the manufacturers of drugs, vaccines and devices cannot be trusted: there are hundreds of studies proving this. But this fraudulent information continues to be the only data informing the approval and use of vaccines, drugs and devices.

Unless scrupulous ethical conduct is demanded of physicians and biological scientists, our lack of meaningful standards will carry the medical-pharmaceutical system down the path of increasing irrelevance.

Medicine and its tools need to be affordable. The current medical-industrial milieu, characterized by contempt for science, countless ways for insiders to achieve wealth due to failure of good governance, and regulatory agency-to-industry revolving doors, has ushered in stratospheric pricing... further kicking us down that path to irrelevance.

Why is our new health care plan a giveaway to health industries instead of to health consumers? Wha won't it cover all Americans? Why was the "public option" never an option for the Obama administration?

So many of our leaders carry a heavy burden of mendacity and avarice. If they instead got in touch with their own souls (perhaps by exposure to the natural world), or made their decisions by maximizing the amount of good that results, our leaders might find real meaning and value in their lives.

Until that happens, the only way to straighten out the current mess is to demand accountability and impose penalties on unethical/dishonest leaders. Both political parties enjoy bounteous hors d'oeuvres from Pharma's table, making it unlikely the existing political "process" will provide relief--as we've seen in the demoralizing healthcare reform drama.

Until then, I'll continue to "call it as I see it" in this blog -- working and living the way life should be, in rural Maine, far from the centers of power.

Ellen Byrne has created several designs encapsulating aspects of the FBI's ridiculous case against Bruce Ivins. They can be purchased on T-shirts and coffee mugs. All proceeds will be donated to the the Frederick County chapter of the American Red Cross, a favored charity of Dr. Bruce Ivins.